The literary world is in mourning. Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa passed away on 13 April at the age of 89. It should be the whole world mourning. Because Vargas Llosa wasn't just a great novelist.  He spent his life fighting tyranny around the world. He harboured an intense hatred of authoritarianism and a burning passion for freedom. His death comes at a time when the world is drifting back to an era of despots relentlessly chipping away at basic rights.  At a time when the brave voice of a warrior for liberty was most needed, Vargas Llosa's has been extinguished.

Vargas Llosa wasn't your run of the mill novelist.  He wasn't lost in a world of literary fantasy. He was a man of action - and a politician too.  He ran for President in his native Peru in 1990 and after leading comfortably in the polls he lost at a runoff to Alberto Fujimori.  ONE news would have called him a "failed politician". Vargas Llosa would have politely pointed out that he was also a Nobel laureate. As it turned out, his victorious rival Fujimori quickly turned into an authoritarian. 

Vargas Llosa wrote "I absolutely hate authoritarianism - on the right and the left".  That hate started early.  At the age of 12 he experienced dictatorship first hand when General Manuel Odria overthrew the democratic government of Peru.  At the time Vargas Llosa dreamt of being a writer. He read avidly.  He loved Gustave Flaubert and Albert Camus.  But his father, himself an abusive authoritarian, didn't want him to become a writer because he believed "writers are losers".  He sent his son Mario to Lima's military academy at the age of 14.  There, Vargas Llosa was exposed to the sadistic bullying of the military.  That bitter experience inspired Vargas Llosa's first novel - The Time of the Hero, a story about bullying and power, how that power led to murder and how the authorities tried to cover it up.

The thread in that novel resonates with Malta's own experience where the relentless bullying of a journalist and the abuse of power to intimidate and harass her paved the way to her brutal murder. 

Vargas Llosa's assessment of the destructive political self-deception in Latin America was accurate.  He called Mexico's ruling party, which had been in power for decades, "the perfect dictatorship" because it was "camouflaged" to look like a democracy. That too sounds terribly close for comfort.  Labour has not been in power for decades.  It's only been in power for 12 years.  Yet it's systematically demolishing our democracy, eroding rights we once enjoyed. 

The recent magisterial inquiries reform has deprived citizens of the right to request a magisterial inquiry, compelling them to resort to a police commissioner notorious for stifling any attempt to hold members of the ruling party accountable. Prime Minister Robert Abela has now threatened to pass legislation to deprive citizens of their right to file complaints about politicians. The relentless harassment and intimidation of critics and adversaries, the bullying employed by Labour's ONE media machine and the hostility shown towards journalists is no different from the treatment meted out to Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Vargas Llosa hated that sort of bullying and abuse of power.  He abhorred dictatorships and dictators, He hated it when people made excuses for autocrats. In his novel "The Feast of the Goat" he savagely takes apart the tyranny of Rafael Trujillo whose dictatorship of the Dominican Republic lasted from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. It is a vivid description of the human impact of Trujillo's evil regime and the damage done by his dictatorship, not only during his life, but even beyond his death.

But probably Vargas Llosa's best novel is "The War of the end of the World".  In it he reflects on a Brazilian baron's disgust with politics.  "Politics had always bored him, wearied him, impressed him as being an inane depressing occupation since it revealed human wretchedness more clearly than any other," Vargas LLosa wrote.  The baron entered politics "not out of some heartfelt vocation" but because he feared the "vast stupidity, irresponsibility or corruption of others".  Those were probably the sentiments of Vargas Llosa himself. He felt it was his duty to stand for office to try and impeded the ascent to power of irresponsible and corrupt adversaries.

After his unsuccessful presidential run, Vargas Llosa wrote a fortnightly column in El Pais, a Spanish newspaper, for over three decades - from 1990 until 2023. In his column he captured the fears and humiliations intrinsic in authoritarian rule and the devastating damage of autocracy.  He was never afraid to challenge even the most intimidating of autocrats. When Fidel Castro imprisoned poet Alberto Padilla, Vargas Llosa wrote him a public letter protesting the Cuban political system and condemning his capricious ruthlessness. He lambasted Hugo Chavez for his repression.

Despite his deep hatred for autocrats and dictators, Vargas Llosa was always polite and cordial, His manners were always impeccable. Even in his condemnation of brutal and vicious despots his language was measured and his tone reasonable.  Through his novels and his political commentary, Vargas Llosa provided a vision of the perils of authoritarianism and the hazards of power that is more relevant today than it ever was. His deep disappointment in his own country never diminished his love for his homeland.  "Peru," he wrote "is a kind of incurable disease for me".  His final novel "I give you my silence" published in 2023 is a bittersweet reflection on Peru.

Vargas Llosa nurtured a dream of a better country and a better world throughout his life.  Towards the end of his life he had resigned himself to the fact that his dream would not be fulfilled during his lifetime.  Through his writings he did his utmost to warn the citizens of the world who outlived him to shun autocrats and despots - he knew too well the damage they could wreak.

Malta too should heed Vargas Llosa's dire warning.